what the @#&$?

Rating: 3/10 (19 July 2003)

I will try not to give too much away about the movie, but there aren't many twists in the plot anyway.

I had high expectations going into this movie, primarily because IMDB indicated a very high rating.
However, I found the film to be poorly made.
I thought the characters were inconsistent, or evolving too fast for me to comprehend--Selena was initially a cold, impersonal soldier who hacked her close friend, Mark, then out of no where she delivers an untimely peck on Jim's cheek, then she breaks down and cries when the little girl's father is killed.
I thought the movie could have been more interesting as a mystery (of course I'm no director) but Boyle gave us the entire story from the beginning. I think if they just postponed the initial laboratory/monkey rescue scene till later, the film would have had an awesome beginning with Jim wondering around trying to figure what's going on as the audience is also trying to grasp the storyline. But instead, we are forced to sit waiting, not for the storyline, but simply the blood and gore to come.
I thought the movie raised a lot of interesting issues. You can read about many of them in the other user comments. But I feel that's all it did. It raised them. Then it left them alone. For example, there's something to consider in how we define the new family institution; how we rebuild the human race with nine men; does it become a moral duty for women to bare the next generation of the species? I felt Boyle lead me to discover these issues, but bullets and zombies quickly killed off the artifacts of this discovery. His answer was a removal of the question in the first place.
Lastly, I didn't find it very scary at all, though this is entirely a matter of opinion. It certainly shouldn't be hailed as the scariest film since the Exorcist.
Overall, I thought the title accurately reflects the movie. "28 Days Later". Why not "27 Days Later"? or "29 Days Later"? They show this phrase twice. But what's the significance...? It seemed totally arbitrary, much like the actions of the characters and scenes in the movie.

Lingering questions:
1) Why was it safe to travel in the day? Did Boyle ever tell us why zombies cannot expose themselves to the day? Or was it just simply scarier? I still think he owes us an explanation for this. In the end, we do see the military aircraft fly over two zombies in broad daylight. They seemed to be in great pain, they seemed to have lost their Rage. Was this due to the sunlight? Or is this an indication of the starving zombies?
2) Does it make sense that our three survivals are hailing a military aircraft? Aren't they afraid of a repeat scenario? What makes them think this new military unit won't use the women as concubines? Or are we to believe that Jim will be able to pull off yet another impossible rescue mission?